Waspi women should be compensated for state pension age change failures

[IwantToRetire]

I heard a discussion about this on the BBC which was more detailed than this article, and implied that the problem wasn't so much how it was announced in the 1990s, but the later changes during the time Coalition was in power.

But suspect whoever is in Government there will be a delay in any payout.

https://www.professionalpensions.com/news/4188325/waspi-women-compensated-pension-age-change-failures

Somebody did try to suggest it wasn't fair on younger people to expect them to foot the bill (as if it hasn't always been the current tax payers who foot the bill at the time).

Which would be the same as saying the local government's who have gone bankrupt once it was shown they had discriminated against women employees and owed them money, shouldn't have to do it.

So not only are women too often cheated at the time, but are later told they shouldn't expect compensation because not fair on current tax payers.

(For some reason cant access the WASPI web site, but suspect it might just be overloaded. But when back on line may be worth checking their take on the situation. http://www.waspi.co.uk )

I feel like the boomer generation, generally, were not that financially competent to be honest. It's same with the Shared Appreciation Mortgage - no information was hidden about this product and the banks stood to lose money if house prices had depreciated, but now the boomers are taking Bank of Scotland to court because house prices appreciated and boomers don't want to fulfill their side of the deal🙄it just makes me think they did not understand finances or how to make good financial choices at all. Alot of the the WASPIs seem to talk a lot about not working past 60, but are happy to take a chunk of money out of the system to leave the younger generations past 70. WASPIs are greedy as far as I'm concerned and haven't done enough to take control of their professional/financial/domestic situations. I know many women in their 60s who worked as head mistresses, estate agents so it was definitely possible for those boomers not seeking to just have babies and be paid for it.

I do feel so very sorry for everyone yoinger who will have their retirement pushed back until they are 70 which is coming down the line, but I will make a special exception for you Ruby. Kisses.

Oh what a shame. Anyway sending you sisterly solidarity vibes.

I just don't understand all this 'the government STOLE 50k off me' type stuff...the money was never theirs in the first place? By that logic they've stolen it from everyone haven't they? Entitled baby boomers who have no idea and could care even less how difficult things are for younger people. As for how awful their lives were, with their 'caring responsibilities' - yeah it must've been bloody awful being able to take 10 YEARS off work to bring up their lovely babies themselves, at home. Or to just 'go part time' to 'fit it all in'. Bloody patriarchy, eh? They had a lovely time and a lovely life and its still 'where's our compo'? They haven't got a clue.

You think men noticed that women's retirement age changed? I very much doubt that.

No, I mean the assumption that men can understand, gather the facts and make sensible plans for their retirements, but somehow, women can't be expected/trusted to do the same for their own.

After all, where have the protests been from large assembled groups of men over their retirement age also rising from 65 to 67/68 and claiming that they had no way of knowing this, as the WASPIs are asserting?

That said, maybe if the women who chose to pay the Married Woman's Stamp, with the obvious implication that, in return, they would be relying on their husbands' pension as the main funding source for them both in retirement, did decide to leave it up to their husbands to do the pension planning - surely they should be directing their ire at their husbands and not at the government?

Well, this entitled boomer worked solidly fron 21 to 67, took no time off (apart from periods after redundancy and when I was temping and there were no jobs) and still doesn't think the Waspi women are reasonable with their 'we wuz robbed' and 'we want compo.'

So you know what you can do with your sweeping generalisation about women of a certain generation.

Fair enough! Its just almost every woman of that age I know or have ever met. Hardly any of them worked more than about 50% of their working lives. Because they didn't have to and didn't want to. That's the real issue, there's nothing in the pot, so it must be someone else's fault.

I'm in my 50s, equalising of men's and women's pension ages was announced in 1995 and was absolutely all over the news. I don't see how anyone could have missed it. I'm not over the moon to wait til I'm 67 but I am am certain that this will be way more generous than my kids will get.

Nice to see you have such aspirations for bettering everyones lives.

in the 70's in this country. Women did not have privacy in their tax matters as their husbands were responsible for filling in their tax returns .
in the civil service, women's pensions were downgraded on marriage as husbands we're supposed to be the main earner. ANC despite a few lucky outliers, most women's career prospects were far more limited than hey are now.
Equal pay was on the statutes but wax not a reality for the majority of women.
Information on rights was what you saw on tv or a newspaper

What can any of us do about it but accept it, though?

What does this have to do with how changes to the state pension age were communicated between 1995 and 2011?

They're never going to pay it, I think. Even the stupidity of saying the average owed is £1500. How could that it? It's only 2 months full pension.

It's to counter the comments that women had the full facts at their finger tips. Should have known etc. pensions and working conditions have changed for women dramatically and it is unfair to assume women brought up in the 50 and 60s had the same financial autonomy. Information and opportunities that they do now

I'm only slightly younger than the WASPI women, and I find your patronising attitude that these were silly little women who couldn't understand finance extremely offensive.

Obstacles to employment and financial autonomy is not the same as choosing to be ignorant. And by the 90s when the changes were made, there was no reason why these women wouldn't have known unless they chose not to engage with the rest of the world (like a PP).

Not sure if this is the case for all but in my experience women of that age that were in work in the 1990s appear to have known about the changes. My mum was born in the 1950s and was a single parent who worked in low paid jobs, she knew for years. My auntie who was a couple of years younger was affected by the further changes in the 90s to increase to 66. The only person who I know personally who shares the waspi women posts on fb and posts about how unfair it was actually stopped work in the 1970s when she had her kids and never worked again. She got ni stamps through her husband, no now a days people doing that wouldn’t be entitled to stamps except for the years they are claiming child benefit for an under 12 so wouldn’t even qualify for full state pension anyway

I agree Morph. I was mid twenties in 1995 and remember having conversations a good old moan about it.

Which makes me think at least some of the women who weren't in work, didn't need to be a work. It really is outrageous to suggest our children and grandchildren would pick up the tab for compensation for these relatively fortunate women.

As an aside, if you conflate the group who had relatively little notice of the change from 65 to 67 with the larger group of women who started work expecting to retire at 60, you could argue that any female paying NI in 1995, which would have included some 16 year olds, that would be a rather large group of women.

I remember in 1995 on hearing the announcement my gran calling my mum - her daughter born in 1947 - 'Jammy' for scraping in to the retiring at 60 still category!
My beef is the abominable pay many people were on. It was only from about 2000 that things improved. And so often working jobs where you didn't get the hours to pay NI, unscrupulous bosses paying peanuts and you having no come back, earning so little that thinking of paying into a pension was the very last thing on your mind. That wasn't just so called waspi women who were treated like that.

I agree Morph. I was mid twenties in 1995 and remember having conversations a good old moan about it

I actually heard it at work in 1995 (early 40s) and thought 'bloody hell, really?'

I mean, imagine the sheer inequality of women having to work to the same age as men and not get extra compensation for it! Surely if anyone should finish early it's men as they tend to die earlier, which is also compounded by them often being older than their partner.